August 11th, 2010

Until now the earliest evidence of stone tools was found at Gona in Ethiopia in 1994. The artifacts have been securely dated to 2.6 million years and were clearly manufactured, as opposed to shapes formed naturally by erosion or being tumbled in streams. They corresponded in size, shape and apparent usage to the most rudimentary stone tool technology, called Oldo

August 10th, 2010

Field schools offer university level students an intensive, hands on way to sharpen their paleontological and archaeological knowledge. Field schools are operated by academic institutions at working sites. Students accepted at field school pay tuition, as a rule, and receive credit in equivalent classroom hours after a number of weeks' instruction in geology, mapping, searching for and catalo

June 29th, 2010

For most of the twentieth century what we knew about human evolution derived from the finding and analysis of fossilized bone. Reconstruction of bone fragments, comparison with previous finds and contemporary ape and human anatomy kept pushing our understanding of human origins deeper in time. A dramatic example of this point was the 1974 discovery of AL-288-1, the partial Au.

May 20th, 2010

A sixty percent complete, “first draft” of the Neanderthal genome has been prepared by scientists with the Max Planck Institute in Germany and there is evidence there was interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans about 80,000 years ago in the Levant. This announcement appeared in the journal Science on May 8 and has had a mixed reception.

April 30th, 2010

Two nearly complete skeletal fossils, one a juvenile male and the other an adult female, were found a year ago in South Africa and announced last month in two articles in the journal Science. Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist with University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg was mapping cave site near that city when his son Matthew, a short distance away with his dog, called out h

April 28th, 2010

Some visitors to this website have difficulty with spoken English, either because they are hearing impaired or English is not their first language. We have created transcripts so these visitors can more fully experience the Documentary narrated by Don Johanson.

February 12th, 2010

The timeline on this website, The Human Lineage Through Time, added last September, is being expanded. Starting this week and continuing through mid March, we will have an essay for each of the hominin species shown on the timeline.